May 6, 2009 (middle of the night)

May 6, 2009 (night, or early morning hours, whichever you prefer)

I prayed to You tonight, prayed truly with what I hope is all my heart, to let go of Toni as my image of myself and embrace You. I prayed that You would help peel my grip from this anchor that is pulling me into the depths, while I insist on holding on. I prayed that You would remove this monstrous weight from my shoulders. I felt nothing. I admit it. Is that wrong? Something that huge seems it ought to feel like something. Please forgive my unbelief. I believe, but I never feel like it's enough. Please help me to trust fully in You.

It just occurred to me – as far as I can remember, I don't think I've written in the first person to You in my journal since college. And since then I have scoffed at that, at my idealism and naivete and childish belief. Now it's 20 years later, and I want that back. More than anything, because it will lead me back to you. I miss knowing things all the way down to my heart. Help me find that again.

I want my Eowyn moment.
I have to learn to separate the things that I am thankful for from the things in which I invest my identity. My physical abilities – the loss of which seemed to kick off the worse of this whole depression ugliness to a point where I had to deal with it – had also become a HUGE piece of my identity, and I am exhausted of falling into the same sand traps over and over and over again. This time HAS to be different. I will search every rock and crevice if that's what it takes for this stubborn sheep to find her shepherd, for You to feel REAL to me once more.

I find myself tossing and turning in bed, trying to figure all this out in my head. Only to be stopped in my tracks again, realizing that not only is it not my responsibility, I'm not supposed to struggle through all this alone. I need to just trust and believe, and let all the rest go.

May 7, 2009 (early morning)

Starting tomorrow, I will have slept at the Cryder house for two solid weeks. How do I know when it is the right time to just go home?

On a more imminent note, how do I stop suddenly being afraid of the dark (or the monsters I seem to have unleashed within it)? My thoughts circle and spin, and the exhaustion feeds on itself like a creature of its own making.